Fargo ag group grows half acre of corn for local pantry

It can be difficult for food pantries to offer fresh produce, which is more expensive to buy than canned goods. It’s a problem that Churches United, a Moorhead-based nonprofit that runs a local food pantry, has run into.

“Most food pantries run on donations, so, when you start looking at where you’re going to spend your funds, obviously spending them on those processed foods, those shelf stable foods, your bang for your buck just goes farther,” Churches United CEO and Pastor Devlyn Brooks said.

Brooks added that when their pantry, named Dorothy Day Food Pantry, does get produce donations, it’s usually from big box stores that are donating food close to its expiration. In other cases, donations come from people who just grew the produce in their own garden.

Leadership at Grand Farm, a Fargo-based ag research center, heard about the pantry’s plight last Fall and decided to grow half an acre of sweet corn for the pantry. It used a plot of sweet corn it had available in its nearby Wheatland, N.D., campus.

“So this was a good opportunity for us to find a key partner that would put this nutritious sweet corn to good use,” Grand Farm ecosystem director Andrew Jason said.

The half-acre could yield anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 ears of sweet corn. Brooks said the gift is well appreciated, especially as the group expects more people to use food pantry services this year.

“In May alone, we also distributed just under 50,000 pounds of food in one month, and that number already is looking to be trending higher in June,” Brooks said.

The corn will be ready for harvest in August. The harvested food will help feed the nearly 1,500 households the Dorothy Day Food Pantry serves each month, according to Brooks.

“We never get the opportunity to provide produce on that scale,” Brooks said. “This is an amazing gift.”